Selections From The Poems And Plays Of Robert Browning Part 30

"ROUND US THE WILD CREATURES"

Round us the wild creatures, overhead the trees, Underfoot the moss-tracks--life and love with these!

I to wear a fawn-skin, thou to dress in flowers; All the long lone summer day, that greenwood life of ours!

Rich-pavilioned, rather--still the world without-- 5 Inside--gold-roofed, silk-walled silence round about!

Queen it thou on purple--I, at watch and ward, Couched beneath the columns, gaze, thy slave, love's guard!

So, for us no world? Let throngs press thee to me!

Up and down amid men, heart by heart fare we! 10 Welcome squalid vesture, harsh voice, hateful face!

G.o.d is soul, souls I and thou; with souls should souls have place.

PROLOGUE TO ASOLANDO

"The Poet's age is sad: for why?

In youth, the natural world could show No common object but his eye At once involved with alien glow-- His own soul's iris-bow. 5

"And now a flower is just a flower; Man, bird, beast are but beast, bird, man Simply themselves, uncinct by dower Of dyes which, when life's day began, Round each in glory ran." 10

Friend, did you need an optic gla.s.s, Which were your choice? A lens to drape In ruby, emerald, chrysopras, Each object--or reveal its shape Clear outlined, past escape, 15

The naked very thing?--so clear That, when you had the chance to gaze, You found its inmost self appear Through outer seeming--truth ablaze, Not falsehood's fancy-haze? 20

How many a year, my Asolo, Since--one step just from sea to land-- I found you, loved yet feared you so-- For natural objects seemed to stand Palpably fire-clothed! No-- 25

No mastery of mine o'er these!

Terror with beauty, like the Bush Burning but unconsumed. Bend knees, Drop eyes to earthward! Language? Tus.h.!.+

Silence 'tis awe decrees. 30

And now? The lambent flame is--where?

Lost from the naked world; earth, sky, Hill, vale, tree, flower--Italia's rare O'errunning beauty crowds the eye-- But flame? The Bush is bare. 35

Hill, vale, tree, flower--they stand distinct, Nature to know and name. What then?

A Voice spoke thence which straight unlinked Fancy from fact; see, all's in ken: Has once my eyelid winked? 40

No, for the purged ear apprehends Earth's import, not the eye late dazed.

The Voice said, "Call my works thy friends!

At Nature dost thou shrink amazed?

G.o.d is it who transcends."

SUMMUM BONUM

All the breath and the bloom of the year in the bag of one bee; All the wonder and wealth of the mine in the heart of one gem; In the core of one pearl all the shade and the s.h.i.+ne of the sea; Breath and bloom, shade and s.h.i.+ne--wonder, wealth, and--how far above them-- Truth, that's brighter than gem, 5 Trust, that's purer than pearl-- Brightest truth, purest trust in the universe--all were for me In the kiss of one girl.

EPILOGUE TO ASOLANDO

At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time, When you set your fancies free, Will they pa.s.s to where--by death, fools think, imprisoned-- Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you loved so, --Pity me?

Oh, to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken! 5 What had I on earth to do With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly?

Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel --Being--who?

One who never turned his back, but marched breast forward, Never doubted clouds would break, 10 Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph, Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, Sleep to wake.

No, at noonday in the bustle of man's work time Greet the unseen with a cheer!

Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be, 15 "Strive and thrive!" cry "Speed--fight on, fare ever There as here!"

PIPPA Pa.s.sES

A DRAMA

_PERSONS_

PIPPA.

OTTIMA.

SEBALD.

Foreign Students.

GOTTLIEB.

SCHRAMM.

JULES.

PHENE.

Austrian Police.

BLUPHOCKS.

LUIGI and his Mother.

Poor Girls.

MONSIGNOR and his Attendants.

INTRODUCTION

NEW YEAR'S DAY AT ASOLO IN THE TREVISAN